Qualcomm, Apple end clash over royalties

Future iPhones will switch to Intel modems, a move that may result in slower performance

Apple’s long, litigious and messy fight with Qualcomm may have reached its climax on Wednesday, as Qualcomm’s chief financial officer announced during an earnings call that Apple will no longer use its modems for future iPhones.

The Apple- Qualcomm fight centered on Apple’s displeasure at forking over as much as $30 in royalties to Qualcomm for every iPhone sold. Apple soon began working with Intel to develop new modems — some of which were used in iPhone 7 — starting in 2015. In January last year, Apple sued Qualcomm, alleging the royalties amounted to extortion, and stopped paying the royalties.

A year and a half later, Qualcomm seemed to have given up on Apple.

“We believe Apple intends to solely use our competitor’s modems rather than our modems in its next iPhone release,” said Davis, according to CNET.

Another Qualcomm executive said during the earnings call, “If the opportunity presents itself,” Qualcomm will become Apple’s supplier once again, according to CNET.

Apple’s break from Qualcomm, however, may mean slower iPhones compared to its Android counterparts, as phones using Qualcomm chips outperformed phones using its competitors, according to a recent study. Apple will be switching its iPhone 4G modems

from Qualcomm to Intel, according to CNET.

In a study published this week by Ookla, a Seattlebased internet testing and analysis company, Android phones powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 ran significantly faster than non-Android phones powered by Intel’s XMM 7480 and 7360 chips on various cellular carriers. The study ran more than 1 million internet speed tests to reduce possible bias, ac- cording to ZDNet.

In AT& T and T-Mobile phones, Android phones with Qualcomm chips downloaded data at least 60 percent faster and uploaded data at least 20 percent faster than its non-Android counterparts.

Qualcomm said in a press release Ookla’s test proved that “real- world data supports Qualcomm Technologies’ claims of superior wireless performance.”

In a countersuit by Qualcomm against Apple in April last year, Qualcomm alleged that Apple throttled data speeds in iPhone 7 models with Qualcomm chips to match the slower iPhones with Intel chips.

Qualcommalleged Apple “chose not to utilize certain high-performance features of the Qualcomm chipsets for the iPhone 7” and that Apple “falsely claimed that there was ‘ no discernible difference’ between iPhones with Qualcomm’s chipsets and iPhones with Intel’s chipsets” even when the Qualcomm- powered iPhones nonetheless outperformed the Intel-powered counterparts.